


Refuge

by angesradieux



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, mentions of crucifixion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27888631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angesradieux/pseuds/angesradieux
Summary: Now that they've returned from Wessex, Ragnar notices a change in his priest. He tries to help, but empathy has never come easily. Athelstan talks about the crucifixion for the first time.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Refuge

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: So Ragnar isn't an asshole in this one! Not on purpose, anyway. Even when he's trying to be kind, I see him as kind of like, "Feelings? What are those? Derp." This is my first attempt at writing a kind Ragnar. I hope he doesn't come off as too out of character. If he does, feel free to let me know, I don't bite! Feedback is always appreciated. I personally don't really ship Ragnar and Athelstan, but this probably reads as shippier (is that a word?) than most of my other fics. If you choose to read it that way, by all means.
> 
> ~Anges

Things have changed. As much as Ragnar wants to pretend they can fall back into their old patterns and their old lives, there is no denying it. Athelstan will smile at him. He will talk and drink and laugh with everyone, but he remains distant in a way he hasn’t been in a very long time. The ghosts of England cling to him, lurking in the shadows behind his eyes. It’s impossible to miss, no matter how stubbornly Ragnar pretends he doesn’t see or how studiously the priest avoids the subject.

Most follow Ragnar’s lead and leave well enough alone, likely more for fear of their king than concern for Athelstan. Still, he hopes it’s made it easier to reassimilate. Or to try to, at least.

But Floki’s eyes remain constantly on his priest, hostile and suspicious. Athelstan has always been kind and gentle, and the easy way he forgave and allowed things to just roll off his back made him the butt of many jokes. He’d never minded having a laugh at his own expense, instead responding with a bashful smile and an amused, if somewhat embarrassed, glimmer in his eye. Sometimes, if the ale flowed freely, he might volley back a quip of his own—though often kept in check, the man’s tongue could be as sharp as any of their blades. But whatever was said of him in the past, he rarely let it bother him.

Not so now.

“Priest,” Floki sneers as he enters the hall. Already, Athelstan’s lips are set in a thin line. Floki takes his silence as an invitation. “Do you not have enough blood on your hands already?” The priest tries to ignore him as he takes a seat at the table. He’s coiled as tightly as a viper preparing to strike, but Ragnar is the only one who can see the danger. “You don’t belong here.”

Athelstan’s mouth twists into an entirely uncharacteristic sneer. He lashes out, swiping his arm across the table. The back of his wrist catches Floki’s cup and sends it toppling over. Without another word, he stands, scoffs, and prowls out of the hall, looking much more a lion than the gentle lamb everyone had taken him for.

He leaves with a limp in his gait that he tries to disguise as stiffness born of anger. For now, Ragnar watches. He’s seen his priest angry before, but this is different. So often in the past his anger turned inward and focused on himself. When it hadn’t, he’d been much more apt to lash out with words than in action. This is new, and seems to surprise even Floki who had provoked Athelstan’s temper.

His disposition is hardly any better come morning. There’s no smile to be found, even for Ragnar, and the shadows of a sleepless night hang about his face. He tramps along behind his king in sullen, stony silence as he’s led to wherever it is Ragnar would like him to go. He stops when he sees two shields and a pair of axes await. “Ragnar.” There’s warning in his voice that the Viking chooses not to heed.

“Come. England has made you soft. It’s time to correct that.”

Athelstan’s lips thin, brow knitting in displeasure. “Ragnar, no.”

The shield is thrust into his hands. He moves to cast it aside, but Ragnar is already swinging his axe, forcing the priest to defend himself. “Pick up your axe,” he demands as he swings again. “Defend yourself!”

Muscle memory drives him to reach for his weapon and raise it to fend off Ragnar’s assault. The handles cross, but only for a moment before Athelstan’s grip falters and he drops the axe. He ducks away from Ragnar, losing his footing and landing unceremoniously in the dirt. Athelstan scowls.

Ragnar just laughs and extends a hand to help him back up. “Try again, priest. It’ll come back to you easily enough.”

He bats Ragnar’s hand away in the same manner he did Floki’s cup the night before, catching it with the back of his wrist rather than the palm his hand. “I’ve had enough.” He gets himself to his feet, intending to leave, but Ragnar stands in his path.

“It’s not like you to give up so easily.”

Athelstan grits his teeth. “I can’t.”

It’s met with a teasing smile and the Viking tossing his axe to the side. His voice is cajoling, more suited to teasing a petulant child than speaking to a grown man. “I’ll make it fair for you. I won’t even hit back.” The priest needs to vent his anger on someone, and Ragnar would rather it be him. If only he weren’t so stubborn.

Athelstan tries to push passed him, but he won’t allow it. “Fight your way past.”

The priest’s face is flush with anger. He picks up the axe and swings. His grip weakens instantly at the shock of the blade meeting shield and the weapon falls to the ground again. “I _told_ you! I. Can’t,” he snarls. It’s been a long time since Ragnar has seen such a combination of fury and hopelessness on his priest’s face.

He hates him. He hates that smugness, as though he always knows best. Because he’s _Ragnar Lothbrock_ , and Ragnar Lothbrock is never wrong. He hates the teasing, and the steadfast refusal to take no for an answer. But most of all, he hates that he doesn’t really hate him at all. He’s angry and frustrated, but he doesn’t hate Ragnar. He doesn’t actually _hate_ anyone, except maybe himself.

Even if he doesn’t hate Ragnar, he doesn’t want to see him right now.

Athelstan’s chest is tight and he feels as though he can’t breathe. He keeps his head down as he returns to the house. He doesn’t want to look at anyone. Floki may be the only one brave enough to voice it, but they’re all thinking it. He isn’t one of them and he doesn’t belong here. They aren’t wrong. He hears Ragnar following and forces himself to walk faster, no matter how much it hurts.

By the time he makes it to his room, his throat aches from the effort of fighting back tears. Feeling breathless and exhausted, he sits on the bed and crosses his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his elbows so he doesn’t have to look at them.

He hasn’t cried since they cut him down from the cross. He didn’t cry when he couldn’t walk. He didn’t cry when he struggled to use a cane because his hands weren’t strong enough to grip it. He didn’t cry when he was reduced to the king’s pet Pagan, or when he held a quill and brush and realized he’d never be able to paint the way he used to again. He wanted to, staring at the clumsy brushstrokes and misshapen letters of the pages he’d worked on so painstakingly. But he hadn’t given into that weakness. He doesn’t want to here, either.

Except here it’s harder. He feels the loss more keenly.

He doesn’t look up when Ragnar enters, unwilling to let his king see the teary brightness of his eyes. But he doesn’t need to. The grief is there in the set of his shoulders, the crease in his brow, and the way that he breathes. It’s an all-encompassing sorrow that has carved itself into the entirety of his bearing. “Please,” he manages, voice little more than a strained whisper. “Please, just go.”

Ragnar doesn’t. Instead, Athelstan feels a dip in the bed as the other man sits beside him.

“Athelstan.”

The use of his given name brings his eyes upward.

“You humiliated me.”

“It wasn’t my intention.”

“I know.”

Ragnar meant to help, in his own way. Athelstan knows it. If he were to be honest with himself, the anger he’d felt towards his king had begun to fade the minute Ragnar was no longer in his line of sight. Accusations simply come to him easier than the truth. And yet it must be said.

“Floki is right. I don’t belong here,” comes the painful confession.

At one time, such a statement might have sent the Viking into a rage. He’d have shouted, thrown things, possibly hit Athelstan for daring to speak it aloud. The quiet exhale was a testament to how much the Viking had changed in the years they’ve known each other. “And yet you chose to return, rather than stay in Wessex.”

“I didn’t belong there, either.”

“Then where—”

“I don’t know.”

Maybe nowhere.

Lagertha’s absence is keenly felt. She possessed an empathy and a way of understanding people that Ragnar had never truly understood. He’s never had a way with words—never needed it, really. Ragnar has always been a man of action. All he can think to do is ask, “Athelstan, why do you say these things?”

The priest gives a huff and swipes at his eyes, trying to banish the tears he still refuses to allow to fall. Carefully, Ragnar catches his wrist. Athelstan stiffens, and looks away, features dark with shame. The Viking turns his hand so his palm’s facing up, the pad of his thumb tracing over the scar. He knows England hadn’t been kind to the priest—he’d seen the scars on his brow and hands. But he’d not previously looked close enough to understand the extent of the damage.

“I told you I couldn’t,” he says tightly. “I will never fight again.”

“You won’t have to. I will protect you.”

Athelstan scoffs.

“Do you doubt me?”

“No. But then I become a burden. What place can there truly be for a man who cannot wield an axe?” He finally pulls his hand away and crosses his arms again.

“How did it happen?”

He sees the priest’s jaw clench. Maybe it was a mistake to ask. But the words are out and he can no sooner call them back than he could recall an arrow once loosed from its bow. He can only wait and watch as Athelstan tries to gather himself before he speaks.

“You know I was captured in Wessex, condemned to death for crimes against my countrymen and my God. They had nearly finished carrying out the sentence by the time King Ecbert rode by.” His lips curl into something bitter. “It was done, they said, for my salvation. An apostate is damned. But perhaps in remembering how our Lord suffered for our sins, I would be moved to repent, and that final penance might cleanse the evil from my soul.”

Ragnar doesn’t need to hear the rest. He’s seen the idols in Christian churches and heard his priest’s tales of his Christ enough to fill in the rest. His lips are set in a dangerous line, hands curled to fists at his sides. What he wouldn’t give to know the names of the men who’d done such things, and to see his axe buried in their chests. Or better yet, have them bound before him so he might give them wings.

His king may not need to hear the rest, but perhaps Athelstan needs to say it. He hasn’t yet, either here or in England. “They had me scourged, as Christ had been. Then they placed a crown of thorns on my head and nailed me to their cross, where I was to hang until death.” He doesn’t look up as he speaks, eyes averted as though he thinks it shameful.

His hands will never be the same again, nor will his feet. He may never know another day without pain for as long as he lives.

“King Ecbert may have offered protection, but he could not make me belong. Those people are no longer my people.”

Even if they didn’t say it, he could see it in the eyes that followed him. He was not welcome there. They tolerated him only as the king’s favorite pet—a curiosity kept for the entertainment of the court. It didn’t matter that he attended Mass or wore a cross. The stares said it all. Heretic. Traitor. They’d have rejoiced to see him burn for his sins, first on earth and then for eternity in the depths of Hell.

Athelstan loves Christ, but he finds he no longer loves Christians. In Christ, through confession and penance and faith, all may find forgiveness and love. Wessex had taught him that the same is not true for Christians. He’d not been able to see it until he became a foreigner, but for all their piety and preaching, Christians were so, very much unlike Christ. Perhaps that, more than anything else, is the true shame of the cross. He learned beyond all doubt that he is no longer one of them, nor does he have any desire to be so.

He’s seen the hypocrisy of his faith laid bare before him and there is no going back.

His breath catches. There’s more to be said, but his chest is growing tighter and he feels his throat constricting again. It’s difficult to speak, but he presses on. “When I saw you again, I thought… I hoped…” He shakes his head. Clearly it was stupid.

Finally, the tears he’d been working so hard to beat back begin to fall.

A hand cups his cheek, a rough and callused thumb gently brushing away the wetness. Athelstan is undone, surrendering to miserable sobs.

Ragnar is clumsy as he gathers the priest into his arms. He’d never been the one his children came to when they cried—at least, not unless there was no one else. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he tries. “You’re safe now, Athelstan.”

His priest shakes his head. “All I wanted was to come home. Except now I see that I don’t fit here, either, no matter how I wish it weren’t so.” His head rests against Ragnar’s shoulder, whose large hand strokes his hair. Ragnar doesn’t know what to say, so he just holds Athelstan in the hopes his embrace might say what words cannot. “I wonder… Perhaps I was meant to die on the cross.”

“No.” It’s spoken in the guttural growl that at one time would have made his priest jump out of his skin. Now Athelstan neither flinches nor pulls away. “Don’t say that. I thank the gods every day that they spared your life.”

Athelstan doesn’t answer. Instead, he wraps his arms around the Viking, clinging to him as a lifeline.

“As long as I have breath, you will have a home here. You have nothing to prove to anyone.”

Things have changed. Athelstan has lost part of himself. He will never again fight in a shield wall and he cannot escape the whispers and stares that will follow him. But perhaps that which is most important remains. Despite himself, Athelstan feels safe.


End file.
